Blogger of Everyday Stuff and Nonsense. Author.

Month: October 2014

You all know what a sweet, meek and mild individual I am, right? Right. So it might surprise you to learn that some days ago I was incensed to the point where I ‘took on’ two men in Morrison’s.

My temper started to rise as I stood packing Richard’s extra strong deodorant and his horrible little pots of ‘spread.’ They claim to be beef, chicken, salmon, tuna and mayonnaise, etc. Weirdly, they all smell much the same – but then, why should I worry, the man eats anything with no concern for how many ears, fins and butts go into his choices of sustenance. I digress …

As I loaded up the twenty-toilet roll pack, balancing it precariously, with my eyes still on the little scene causing my anger, I flipped.

‘Look at those window salesmen!’ I hissed to the checkout lady. ‘Can you see them? Every time someone walks past that tall one jumps out and stands in front of the trolley and forces them into a conversation about buying their crap windows!’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Can you see them? Look, they’ve stopped that little lady and she looks really uncomfortable.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Honestly,’ I said, ‘I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.’

‘I know,’ she said.

I don’t think she was really listening. Either that or she was wondering what anyone could want with six tubs of glace cherries?

As I scooted off, with a trolley that kept veering to the right, she added, ‘Good luck, I’ll be watching.’

Trundling along, actually seeking eye-contact should they not leap out on me like they had to everyone else attempting to exit Morrison’s, wrapped in their own little thoughts and not wanting to be disturbed by, ‘Have you thought about new windows?’ I approached. For a moment, I thought they weren’t going to stop me (how could that be?) so I slowed down.

The little guy sidled up to my trolley and the tall guy stepped in front of it and placed a hand on my pack of loo rolls. Big mistake.

‘Madam,’ the tall one said, grinning like a sodding shark, ‘have you considered new windows?’

‘And if I have?’ I said.

‘Well, we can offer …’

I held up a hand, cutting him off at the pass. ‘What makes you think that if I needed new windows I would buy them from someone jumping out in front of my trolley, in a supermarket? I come to the supermarket to buy food, NOT windows and NOT to be stopped by you!’

‘Some people like to stop and chat,’ he said, his grin not quite so wide now.

‘I don’t!’ I said, ‘and neither did those little old ladies that I saw you stop. I don’t come here to be pounced on by you.’

‘Madam, ‘he said, ‘we stand here so that we can get our product ‘out’ there. We have to network, perhaps you don’t understand the concept of networking and …’

Up came the hand again, very rudely, but he really was full of it. ‘Don’t tell me I don’t understand networking and promotion, I’m a writer…’ I actually said that and cringed inwardly ‘…I have to promote my product, but I don’t promote it HERE, do I? I don’t stop little old ladies and force them to buy something they don’t want, do I? You will never come in here and find me jumping into people’s airspace waving a copy of my book in their faces, will you!’

The little salesman was watching now, with the hint of a smile and having backed-up to the perfume display, and I was pretty sure that he wasn’t that keen on his workmate’s blatant selling ethics either.

‘Why do you do it?’ I demanded with my chin raised and jutting.

‘Well Madam, most people who shop are chilled and relaxed and are happy to stop and chat. They are more open to this type of selling.’

‘So, where do I fit into that theory? I said.

I think at this point he realised I wasn’t going to be ordering a new front door and that he had lost valuable ground. He decided to change tactics and appeal to my kind nature.

‘Well, we are very nice …and we are very pleasant.’

I looked at the little guy and then the tall, clever bugger and said, ‘No, he’s nice and pleasant. YOU aren’t – and you definitely need to review your attitude and sales technique!’

And I left. Fortunately, the trolley that only steered to the right, was taken by surprise at my sudden exit and veered horribly and hit him on the knee.

You see, it wasn’t that they were selling windows in Morrison’s, it was that they were forcing themselves on people – and that should not be allowed in my opinion. I have a problem with pushy, in-my-face people – and I am a Scorpio. Creep up on us, or stand in our way, and you’ll receive a quick stab of our tails. We will be guided, but we won’t be herded.

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I have just been informed by WordPress that I have reached another milestone – two years blogging.

First, I am impressed that I had two-year’s worth of words in me. Second, I’m surprised that anyone has wanted to read them. And third, I wonder just how many more words I would have had – if thousands of them had not exited into the ether, after disappearing from the page? I think I’ve improved since then and learnt mostly how not to do that. I’m still struggling with the wrong picture appearing, though. Instead of a picture relevant to the post, I seem to have my book covers everywhere.

This annoys me more than you will ever know. I get sick of seeing them and so I know that you must too. However, as I say, I haven’t figured this out yet and so, for now, I have to go with the flow.

I guess, if I think about it, and knowing how ditsy I am, I should be grateful that anything leaves this page intentionally. But ditsy kinda works for me …somehow.

I’m childish too.

I saw a witch in the cheapo shop the other week. Not a real witch, obviously, although some of the people around here are a bit suspect. No, a full-length floaty witch, and I had to have her – no, I mean, I really had to have her. My original thought was to keep her a secret until Halloween and then to hang her outside the kitchen patio doors, under the dry, porch-type area, and scare the proverbial out of Richard – he’s been very irritating just lately and so I considered he deserved it. Unfortunately, my impatient nature reared its ugly head and I had to ‘hang’ her immediately.

Richard came home and I instantly showed him my witch and said, ‘I was going to keep her until Halloween and then hang her up secretly and scare the shit out of you.’

He looked her up and down and remarked, ‘I’d probably be speaking to it for ten minutes before I realised it wasn’t you.’

Now, I ask you, is that Kind?

I’m getting my own back.

This morning I had a clean out of the ‘dry’ cupboard. Flour, fruit etc. and decided to whack it all into two Christmas cakes. It all went swimmingly until I came across a full, unopened bag of ground almonds. It seemed like a waste to only use half, seeing as how I was trying to use up all the odds and sods, so I tipped the whole bag in. I thought it quite weird that there was no ‘almond’ aroma wafting upwards, so I stuck my finger in and tried them. They tasted like sawdust – or how I thought sawdust might taste? When I checked the sell-by date it said May 2012.

Now, I have always been of the opinion that it isn’t the cockups you make in life that matter, but how you get out of them, so I added a bottle of almond essence. It did the trick. An eye-watering almond aroma flooded the kitchen and even made Chea blink. I then bunged in a glass full of sherry. Alcohol kills everything, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I probably won’t eat Christmas cake this year …but Richard will. Serves him right for the unkind witch comment.

I’ve just noticed that I’ve spilt flour on the floor so I’ll pop off now and give it a quick waft-over with my broom …

Take care my lovelies x

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Well, it’s been a little while since I raised the old bonce above the parapet, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been doing nothing. In fact, I’ve been so busy that I just haven’t had the time to raise my head.

Obviously, a great part of my time has been wasted on trying to sort out my laptop that suddenly decided it wasn’t going to link to anything to do with the internet, and the old Dell had to be sourced from the drawer and kick-started into life.

The sweet little thing loved it, doing its best to link to everything and anything within a mere matter of ages! It battled along beautifully and I promised it faithfully that I would show total commitment to it and never again shove it back into the dark scary drawer. Then, one morning, the old rush of blood to the head occurred and I uninstalled Dropbox on the super-duper non-working laptop and hey presto…it worked. So, I quietly closed down poor Dell and …yeah, shoved it back into the drawer. I’m so fickle. But, you see, I can’t keep raiding the fridge and making tea while I wait ten minutes each time for old Dell boy to link to Facebook or Twitter or whatever, can I?

Also (drum roll) I’ve finished the next novel, Witch Ever Way You Look At It (that’s not a typo by the way) and yesterday shipped it off to my editor. ‘My editor’ Whooo hoo. Yes, I’ve decided that it’s time I went about this properly and have someone struggle through all my unnecessary dots, dashes and ellipses. I love them, like special little furry friends, but I know I use too many so…it’s time for the cull, I fear.

Also, I’ve become involved in a real love of mine, albeit a love that I haven’t experienced for some years. I have become involved as the font of all knowledge in the process of pony buying, pony handling and pony this and that, for two very dear friends Lauren and Ash. Of course, this has caused ripples of interest in Richard’s brain, and last night I caught him looking at ‘Horses for Sale in Leicestershire.’ I’ve told him that he would need a carthorse and I’ve stressed the pitfalls – and they haven’t included the actual falls. Can you imagine the damage when six-foot-two-ish Richard hits the ground from something as tall a giraffe? It would take me bloody ages to fill in the hole made in the ménage! He thinks, just because he can feed the pony (Flo) with an apple from the palm of his hand he can become the next John Wayne. Frankly, I think he’s just fantasising about the black leather boots and swishy riding whip, hardly a sound reason to lash-out a few grand on an elephant-sized equine!

And then there is the garden! Wow, what a little beauty that has been this year. Masses and masses of produce. The cupboards are bursting with jam and chutney. Thankfully, everything is coming to the end of production…except for the sodding runner beans. They breed overnight, under the cover of darkness, and come the morning they are dangling there with smiles on their faces. Richard has almost turned green with all the beans that I’ve forced him to eat. ‘Eat your runner beans and then you can have pudding,’ is the constant promise made from yours truly. Obviously, I’m lying because he’s on a diet and pudding isn’t allowed. And don’t go feeling sorry for him (especially you, Malla) because if he’s going to buy a carthorse and learn how to ride it he will need to shed a few extra pounds. Even a carthorse can only take so much!

The chucks are in chuck heaven, because now that the soft fruits and chicken-chomping stuff is no longer growing I have allowed them up into the veggie plot and they spend hours scratching through the fallen leaves, looking for, and finding, insects and bugs. And this gives me immense pleasure, not the annihilation of the bugs, but watching the chucks, happily foraging with the autumn sunshine on their backs.

And……I’ve started bread making! Yesterday’s first attempt was crap. Utter crap. Looked brilliant. Could barely get the Kitchen Devil knife through it, and the bit of crust I threw out for the birds grounded the poor things. Today I was determined to do better, and, as I type, a loaf is rising. However, ten minutes after I’d put it to rise I realised that I hadn’t put enough yeast in it so out it came and in went more yeast. So that looks like another shit attempt. But have no fear, I WILL make a success of this, or die trying.

And right on cue the little timer thingy is ringing (and I’m even using a timer) so off I trot to knock it back. See, I already have the terminology! Cool.